“We had a wonderful event this year,” says Ronald Velasquez, IPSF president. “The TCCC lion dancers performed a wonderful dance, the Filipino American Youth Association from Phoenix performed two cultural dances and a hip hop performance and the Odaiko Sonora Taiko Drummers performed.”

Each year, the event features a Top Chef competition. In this competition, students go head to head in two categories: appetizers and desserts. In previous years, those in attendance judged the competition.

“This year,” says Velasquez, “we decided to make things a little more fun and have specific faculty judges.“

Georg Wondrak from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, along with Richard Herrier and Jeannie Lee from the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science, judged the appetizer category. Contestants in this category included:

Merta Cushing

Mandy Hwang

Jonis Munoz

Linda Nguy

Lily Nguyen

Nicholas Ong

Tyler Ruddy

Tatiana Sawyer

First place in the appetizer category went to Mandy Hwang for her Korean BBQ skewers and second place was a tie between Linday Nguy for japchae and Tatiana Sawyer for beef kalbi.

For the dessert category, David Apgar, David Lee and Marion Slack, all from the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science, and Richard Vaillancourt from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, worked together to decide the winner. Contestants in the dessert category included:

Mayra Guzman

Aaron Leyba

Ashley Loy

Evan Mallory

Mel Nelson

Dana Reyes

Supranee Soontornpreuska

Wendy Wong

The winner of the dessert competition was Wendy Wong for her banana pudding. The runner-up honor was awarded to Evan Mallory for his mango ice cream.

Adds Velasquez, “It was a fun night filled with laughs, good times and our new officer induction.”

A list of the new officers for the 2015-2016 academic year can be found on the IPSF homepage.